


One More for My Baby

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Gen, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-04-02 19:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4072036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You never really know people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More for My Baby

She only moved at night.

During the day, she ducked into the shade under the motel stairs and slept propped up, a 10mm in her lap. It made her pale, and that made her glow in moonlight. At least she was smart enough to cover it up with a leather jacket and a low-brimmed hat: some Pre-war, moth-bitten thing. She was an easy target, and he was surprised she’d made it to Novac. He didn’t expect her to make it out.

The second night, she came up and introduced herself. “Erin Holt,” she said, “is there anything I can help you with?”

There was. She wasn’t gone but a couple hours before she was back in front of the dinosaur, sat on the corner of the bridge railing. Jeannie May walked over. Erin took off her hat.

She dragged Jeannie’s corpse all the way to the toxic dump site, barely out of range of his scope. Manny wouldn’t see. No one would.

She said she was just headed up to clear the ghouls at REPCONN. He’d be back in 24 hours.

He never went back.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He had this running tally in his head.

Saved the hostage Powder Gangers: +1. Snuck out the Nelson crucifixions: +2. Beat the Legion POW to a bloody pulp: +1. One more. Just one more, and he’d tell her.

He wanted so badly to tell her.

She put a bullet to the cranium of a Fiend he spotted for her, and said, “Tell me about your wife.”

Again, she was on this. He was glad for the Fiends, a welcome distraction, an excuse to stare down his scope, so he wasn’t expected to look at her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I know.” she said with an empathetic hint, glaring down the scope of her own sniper rifle out the ruined motel window next to his. She clipped the shoulder of a chem fiend, and muttered, “Dammit.”

Boone glanced at her, massaging her twitchy, locked up left hand, and finished off the raider. That happened to her, sometimes. Something about that scar on the side of her head. The Fiends were starting to catch on that they were getting picked off, but hadn’t a clue where it was coming from. “I just don’t feel like I know you. Makes me nervous.” she said.

He could understand that.

“The Legion took her, or, I guess, Jeannie May sold her. She’s dead. Jeannie May’s dead. Now we kill the Legion.” He picked off one with a laser rifle, and watched one with a welding helmet until she turned, so he could get the shot in the back of her head. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”

“I know, brooding and mysterious, sore subject, I get it. I’m just wondering,” a .308 took down the Fiend he had been eyeing, from Erin and her sniper rifle, “how do you know she’s dead?”

She’s looking at him, Boone knows. He won’t look back. “I joined up with you to kill legionaries, not talk about my emotional problems.”

“So you admit it’s a problem?”

Two Fiends go down, one from each of them, and they both reach for a full clip on the table, accidentally go for the same one, both back off. She grabs a different one. They get in sync like that, sometimes. Boone doesn’t mind. It’s efficient.

“They’re getting close.” Boone says, taking less time to aim the shot than he would like.

“I know.”

One of the raiders is shooting back in the right direction, and Boone takes him down, but the others are catching on. He ducks behind the wall and grabs his machete. “Not yet...” she says, taking a few more shots. Hers is silenced; she can do that. She looks up over the scope, and pulls her rifle with her as she ducks behind the wall. The frag mines she left at the top of the steps go off.

“How many are left?” he asks.

Erin lifts herself slightly to glance out the window before ducking back down, and whispering, “Four, right out the window.”

“Stick to the plan?” he asks.

“Stuck.” she says with a nod. Boone stands behind the door as one tries to break it down. Boone lets him try, once, twice, and quickly flips the lock and unlatches the door, sending him tumbling inside. He chops the one’s head off and holds his weight against the door while Erin yanks a grenade from her belt, and tosses it out the window. There’s a vague cry from outside, all that’s left after the blast, but Erin gets a shot off from her magnum before he can get the door open. Erin stands, folding the bipod of her rifle, and slings it over her shoulder.

Boone’s holding the door open, but she’s standing with her arms crossed. After a long moment of debating whether to just bolt, he closes the door.

She takes a long inhale. “You are at war with yourself over telling me something, and those opposed are losing.”

He blinks, behind sunglasses. “The hell are you talkin’ about?” It’s an obvious dismissal.

“Look, normally I’d let you keep your secrets, none of my business, but you make it such a point not to show your emotions, I’m not sure how many you have. For all I know, you could be hiding anything from that one time you stole a pack of cigarettes, to how you murdered seven children.”

“I don’t kill kids.”

“Really? How am I supposed to know that?”

“What do you want, my life story?” he snaps.

She glances behind her, and motions to the bed, before sitting on it. “I’ve got time.”

He was running out of ways to get around this. Maybe bolting wasn’t such a bad idea. “I’m sure there’s plenty of things I don’t know about you.”

Up pointed her chin, and that was never a good sign for whoever it was pointed at. “Fine. My name’s Erin Holt, I was born in Vault 101 in Washington DC. My mother died in birth and my dad ran off when I was nineteen to fix a water purifier. Nearly got myself killed a bunch trying to track him down, disarmed an atomic bomb, made myself sick with radiation, picked up my ex from the vault to drag him around the Wasteland. Had a whole lot of sex- just got out of the vault, y’know? I ran out of food, ended up an occasional cannibal. Ran outta caps, worked for slavers. I’ve done some fucked up shit, I’ll be the first to tell you, but-”

In his head, he’s praying she won’t say “ _I’m different now_ ” because it’s the most hackneyed excuse in the book.

She doesn’t disappoint. “-I wouldn’t change it.”

Boone’s got his rifle lined up in an instant. She raises her eyebrows, crosses her arms. Doesn’t move. “Yes, Boone?”

“You’re a slaver?”

“Was, yeah.” she admits freely.

“A fucking _slaver_!?”

“Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

“You were a _fucking slaver_ this _whole time_?”

Erin blinks. “You gonna shoot me, or what?”

Boone’s hand shakes. He points his rifle to the floor. His teeth stay a little bared. “You better get explaining _fast_.”

She shrugs. “I’ve got nothing else to say.”

His grip’s not sitting right, faltering. Shaking. He throws his rifle over his shoulder, stabs at her with his finger. It’s the most emotion she’s seen from him, yet. Last she’ll ever see of him. “You’re no better than the fucking Legion.”

She watches him walk out, and counts to ten in her head before she flops back on the mattress and lets out the breath. “...I’m still alive.”


End file.
